Mobile technology may affect future work trends

That new smartphone you just bought? It may well be the "most important technology" in your life.

A survey conducted by Cisco on 2,800 respondents found that 66 per cent of students and 58 per cent of young employees consider mobile devices such as laptops, smartphones or tablets to be the most important technology in their lives.

Part of this stems from the search for information online, according to the second annual Cisco Connected World Technology Report.

The survey reported that mobile technology has overshadowed older devices such as televisions (TVs) and newspapers when it comes to providing information.

Fewer than six per cent of college students and eight per cent of employees polled said TVs were important.

This downward trend is expected to continue as TV programming and movies become available on mobile devices.

Similarly, only four per cent of college students and employees surveyed globally said the newspaper is their most important tool for accessing information.

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Mobile banking to help 2 billion people by 2020

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Mobile financial services are expected to improve the lives of around 2 billion people in developing countries within a decade and boost economies, a Boston Consulting Group study found.

"Overall, mobile financial services can reduce financial exclusion by 5 percent to 20 percent through 2020 and increase gross domestic product (GDP) by up to 5 percent, with Pakistan, for instance, potentially seeing a 3 percent uplift," the study said.

It added that improved access to finance fostered entrepreneurship, new business creation and new jobs.

The report, released by Norwegian telecom group Telenor on Tuesday, focused on five countries -- Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Malaysia and Serbia -- which represented a broad development range, it said.

Some 72 percent of the population in developing countries are without access to banks or credit cards according to the study.

They manage to work around this by borrowing from friends and family, obtaining short-term credit from employers, forming savings clubs or seeking out moneylenders but these options were often risky, costly and with indeterminate results.

Telecom firms such as Telenor, Vodafone , Orange and MTN have begun investing in mobile payment systems in Asia and Africa that allow consumers to make basic payments for utilities for example but also participate in savings, credit and insurance programmes via mobile phones.

Mobile financial services can also help overcome economic shocks such as natural disasters or unexpected medical emergencies, the study said.

In Kenya, Safaricom's M-Pesa's UAP Insurance insures poor farmers through mobile phones against weather-induced crop failures for example.

Norway's Telenor said it was still early days but that the potential for growth was expected to be huge.

Telenor's EasyPaisa programme in Pakistan started with 2,200 retail outlets in October 2009 and now has 12,600 retailers spread over 650 cities across the country.

It has some 10 million estimated users and the total value of money transfers has reached 17.4 billion Pakistan rupees ($167.2 million).

"We believe that mobile financial services will be one of the key drivers for financial inclusion going forward and thus has the potential to be the most powerful tool for economic and social development in emerging economies," Telenor Chief executive Jon Fredrik Baksaas said in a statement on Tuesday.

Leak: HTC's New Android Targets Global Business Travelers

he HTC PD42100 will likely be what's known as a "world phone," since its support for both standards will effectively allow it to operate anywhere on the planet. Users of the new device will be able to tap the CDMA network in the United States, for example, yet they'll also be able to piggyback off of regional and national GSM carriers in other parts of the world.

Also supported by the device will be EV-DO Rev. A 3G, Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n/), and Bluetooth, according to the leaked documents. Taken together, such broad support could make the device an ideal one for business travelers.

Android 3.0?

Following a similar leak last month about what appears to be the same phone, the FCC documents also reveal a horizontal slider form factor combined with a full QWERTY keyboard.

With a 4-inch touch screen, the new, red handset looks to be a big one, and Verizon Wireless branding is visible. It also appears to feature a rear-facing camera with single-LED flash, a removable battery and microSD memory expansion capability.

Spice Mobiles launched stylish flip phone S-5330 with an Indian

New Delhi: Spice Mobiles has launched a stylish new slim flip phone, Spice S-5330, specificaly for the Indian market. The handset incorporates an Indian calendar or panchang.

The phone also comes packed with features like a powerful MP3 player and FM recording, 3D style display menu, 2 GB expandable memory, mobile tracker and GPRS.

The calendar, being launched in Spice S-5330 gives a sneak peek at festivals, tithi details, lunar position, weekly and monthly information as per the traditional panchang. The tithi details can also be sent as an SMS.

The phone has exciting MP3 features, which allow users to play most of the music formats impeccably, has exciting shuffle & repeat options and a music equaliser that gives you the liberty to choose from eight equaliser settings. Along with this, the phone has many exciting features like FM recordings and an FM Alarm to wake up to the users favourite RJ.

The Spice S-5330 has a 2 GB expandable memory.

Spice S-5330 offers services like MobileTracker, SMS Scheduler, a blacklist and a whitelist number identification facility, a panic button and phone book contact backup. The handset comes loaded with VAS functionalities and gives Live cricket updates, enables users to send free SMS and receive free news alerts, weather forecast and a Reuters service along with a currency checker.

Apart from these, it also comes pre-loaded with the ibibo social networking service, Email2SMS, MGurujee, among others.

The Spice S-5330 is available at Rs2,799 MRP

Source: http://www.domain-b.com/companies/companies_s/Spice_Communications/20090511_spice_s-5330.html